We’ve said it before here at Cover Me, and we’re likely to say it again: Stephin Merritt has put a serious dent in creating a new American songbook without even really seeming to try that hard. The man throws pure poetry at listeners like candy from a firetruck at a fourth-of-July parade.

In the latest Magnetic Fields cover to grace our ears, Blue Eyed Blacks have drawn from The Charm of the Highway Strip, referring to the album as a “forgotten country classic.” While the comment may have been in jest, Neilson Hubbard, Betsy Roo, and Jason Moon Wilkins have distilled beautiful truth from it with their take on “When the Open Road is Closing In.”

Blue Eyed Blacks – When the Open Road is Closing In (Magnetic Fields Cover)